I think yet another variable (I agree with what everyone has said so far by the 
way) is that students today don't necessarily view classes and professors as 
the place to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.  Before the internet mass 
audience events were the place to satisfy curiosity (sure there were books and 
articles to read too but to the casually curious the lecture was the one stop 
hour answer to your curiosity).  Now students can look up what they are curious 
about whenever and wherever they like (they can find videos, lectures, writing, 
etc.).  Even more important is that the place for conversation about topics was 
in face to face gatherings, the classroom, the lunch room, the hallway.  But 
the web offers that as well. 

Doug

P.S. I'm not arguing the web does it any better (or worse).



Doug Peterson, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology
The University of South Dakota
Vermillion SD 57069
605.677.5295
________________________________________
From: Stuart McKelvie [smcke...@ubishops.ca]
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 1:18 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: RE: [tips] The decline of intellectual curiosity

Dear Tipsters,

Both Chris and John make interesting points. Perhaps I could add one more: 
sampling. Over the years, a greater proportion of high school graduates have 
been admitted to higher education. Perhaps the perceived decline in 
intellectual curiosity is related to that. Anecdotally, I think that the best 
students today are just as intellectually curious as those in the past.

Sincerely,

Stuart


___________________________________________________________________________
                                   "Floreat Labore"

                               [cid:image001.jpg@01CFD994.C1E6F680]
            "Recti cultus pectora roborant"

Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D.,     Phone: 819 822 9600 x 2402
Department of Psychology,         Fax: 819 822 9661
Bishop's University,
2600 rue College,
Sherbrooke,
Québec J1M 1Z7,
Canada.

E-mail: stuart.mckel...@ubishops.ca<mailto:stuart.mckel...@ubishops.ca> (or 
smcke...@ubishops.ca<mailto:smcke...@ubishops.ca>)

Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page:
http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy<blocked::http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy>

                         Floreat Labore"

                             [cid:image002.jpg@01CFD994.C1E6F680]

[cid:image003.jpg@01CFD994.C1E6F680]
___________________________________________________________________________



From: John Kulig [mailto:ku...@mail.plymouth.edu]
Sent: September 26, 2014 1:42 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] The decline of intellectual curiosity



It is true there are too many distractions. Another speculation is that the 
lack of curiosity is simply passivity caused by the lower educational levels 
being overly structured with rubrics and outlines. My boys (one in HS another 
almost there) have very detailed instructions for coursework. Perhaps without 
instructions, students will just sit and wait for instructions. I like the joke 
about the class on creativity that starts with "Here are the 6 steps to do be 
creative ..." I think the same happens with "critical thinking". Some texts 
have bullet lists on how to think.

I don't remember getting detailed outlines and rubrics for papers as a student. 
At some point I knew that a paper had to have a beginning which laid out the 
main themes, a middle section with data or arguments, and a conclusion. Did I 
learn it the way Thorndike's cat learned to press levers? or the way a person 
learns to swim quickly when thrown into the water? Successive approximations to 
B and A grades?

Students sometimes ask me for a study guide and I tell them - gently - that 
they should do their own, and talk about different ways to do it, but I won't 
tell them one specific way to do study guides. But then again, most of us 
probably sat in the front row, walked 5 miles to school in the winter etc etc 
etc

==========================
John W. Kulig, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Coordinator, Psychology Honors
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
==========================

________________________________
From: "Christopher Green" <chri...@yorku.ca<mailto:chri...@yorku.ca>>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" 
<tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu>>
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 12:38:45 PM
Subject: Re: [tips] The decline of intellectual curiosity

I’ve probably been too noisy of late, but I’ll give this one a shot (without 
benefit of citations, so take it for what it’s worth). I generally think that 
people who blame everything on the internet and video games are silly buggers, 
but in this case I’ll posit that students (and people in general) seem less 
curious about the world now because of the ubiquity of entertaining 
distractions. I can remember times decades ago, when I was a student myself, 
when I would be very bored with the work I had to do, but after an hour or so 
of doing pretty well nothing at all, I would, in some exasperation, return to 
my work as “better than nothing.” As often as not, I would soon become 
re-engaged with it and work for several hours. TV and radio were there with me, 
of course, as were my own collections of music and books, but they were much 
more limited than now, and often became boring and repetitive themselves. So I 
would go back to work, faux de mieux.

Now, however, there are a zillion possible distractions — 900 channels on TV, 
hundreds of satellite radio stations, the entire world wide web, video games, 
music streaming, texting, social media,... it goes on and on and on. One can 
(too) easily fritter away a whole day, being at least mildly entertained the 
entire time. It is difficult for the entertainment value afforded by "finding 
out about the world" to compete with all that, except among a very small number 
of us who are obsessively (pathologically?) interested in such things. Everyone 
else can go on killing time with relatively non-challenging amusements that are 
specifically engineered to be maximally engaging without ever having to search 
for “something to do,” and perhaps coming across learning as a worthy pastime.

If that seems to exotic an explanation for you, then perhaps the massive 
emphasis that is now placed on the extrinsic rewards for college education 
(getting a middle class job) as opposed to the intrinsic rewards of becoming a 
knowledgeable person. As we (psychologists) all know: extrinsic rewards can 
rapidly undermine intrinsic ones.

Just a couple of thoughts,
Chris
…..
Christopher D Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P#
Canada

chri...@yorku.ca<mailto:chri...@yorku.ca>
http://www.yorku.ca/christo
………………………………...

On Sep 26, 2014, at 10:15 AM, Annette Taylor 
<tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu>> wrote:

> A college in our math department sent me this email today:
> I have been here for 31.5 years and the students are not getting any weaker 
> or any stronger. The one trend I notice is that they are losing their 
> intellectual curiosity. They care less and less about "why". Do you know of 
> any studies/books/websites on the topic? ... it is hard to understand why so 
> many students do not care about why things are as they are.
>
> Any insights on this from the list?
>
> And BTW:
> Thanks to all the great responses to my query about the "systems" part of 
> history & systems.
>
> Annette
>
> Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D.
> Professor, Psychological Sciences
> University of San Diego
> 5998 Alcala Park
> San Diego, CA 92110-2492
> tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu>
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> You are currently subscribed to tips as: 
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